Bad Luck Lady
by Cloud Clavell
Summary: I'm basing this off the G.I. Joe movie the cartoon one, obviously where Beach Head tells Jinx she's a bad-luck lady. Where did that come from? Read on and find out! Bad language and some personal injuries may occur.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm basing this off the G.I. Joe movie (the cartoon one, obviously) where Beach Head tells Jinx she's a bad-luck lady. Where **_**did**_** that come from? Read on and find out!**

Beach Head paced in front of his new troops, looking them over carefully. They were a mismatched bunch, but that wasn't anything unusual. G.I. Joe only employed the best of the best, and sometimes, the best were an odd-looking lot.

There was only one female among the six recruits. She stood stiffly to attention, a small Asian woman made even smaller by the huge ex-basketball player by her side. Beach Head stopped and gave her a good-looking over. She stared straight ahead, not even twitching.

On the sidelines, Ripcord nudged Scarlett. "Hey. Bets on how long it'll take them to get through their very first obstacle course?"

On his other side, Clutch grinned. "My money's on the MP with the dog getting the best time. Those guys come tough."

"I'll put a twenty on the woman," Lady Jaye piped up, right on cue. Scarlett stared straight ahead, her long training in intelligence helping her keep a smooth face.

The men reacted strongly. "Are you kidding?" Ripcord demanded. "She's smaller than you are, Jaye!"

"Are you saying that she's a woman so she can't do it?" Scarlett demanded.

"What? No!" Ripcord cast a terrified look at Clutch. Clutch shrugged and stepped to the side, putting the pilot between him and Scarlett. He hadn't even said anything, but he just knew that if this conversation continued, there would be a boot heading towards his head before too much longer.

"Yeah, they're saying she can't do it 'cause one of her specialties is finance clerk," Cover Girl supplied.

The men hadn't actually known that, but it certainly strengthened their resolve.

"Ok, that's it!" Scarlett declared finally. "Let's settle this like mature adults. ACE! GET OVER HERE! WE NEED TO PLACE A BET!"

Ace trotted over, pulling out a notebook. "I'm here, I'm here. Who, what, how many?"

"Twenty on the woman getting the best time," Jaye declared.

"Jaye, you're going to lose your money," Cover Girl said patiently.

"Alright, that's it. Fifty on the woman."

"Fifty," Scarlett agreed.

The men looked at each other. "I'll put a fifty on the MP," Ripcord said finally.

"I'll put a fifty on Falcon," Clutch supplied.

"Falcon? Isn't that–"

"Yeah. Nothing like sibling rivalry to make you go faster, right?"

Ace dutifully jotted down their names and amounts. Scarlett and Lady Jaye grinned at one another, then Lady Jaye flicked her eyes over Scarlett's shoulder. Scarlett turned, in time to kiss Snake Eyes on the cheek.

"Hey, Snakes. Want to place a bet on Sergeant Arashikage?"

*There are people who are dumb enough to be against her?*

Scarlett smiled. "Oh yeah. The boys didn't seem to think she'd do very well, so we decided to settle our differences in a peaceful manner by gambling. Jaye and I have a fifty on Kimi coming first."

"Kimi?" Clutch repeated. "You know her, Snakes?"

Snake Eyes laughed softly. *Yes. I know her very well.*

"Oh, shi–"

The high-pitched whistle cut through their conversation, and as one, the Joes turned to watch the recruits tackle their first obstacle course.

The first obstacle was a climbing wall. The Asian woman hit it at full speed, and didn't slow down a jot as she scaled it. Ripcord's eyes widened. Snake Eyes nodded in approval at her technique.

The wall was followed by a tire run. The MP and the basketball player caught up to her there: quick as she was, her legs were significantly shorter. She kept level with them through the hurdles and the wire crawl, then pulled ahead when it came to the rope climb. This was a series of tall poles, with miniscule platforms, linked by varying numbers of rope, rope bridges and commando lines.

The woman Scarlett had called Kimi climbed the first pole in five seconds flat, and proceeded to move through the rest of them faster than anyone Ripcord had ever seen except… of course… Snake Eyes.

The light-bulb clicked on with a certain amount of despondency. "She's a ninja, isn't she?" Ripcord sighed.

"The term is _kunoichi_." Scarlett sounded way too smug.

"We got played, didn't we?" Clutch sighed.

*Like a ping-pong table.* Snake Eyes clapped him on the shoulder as the three women began laughing.

"You did well," Jaye told Cover Girl.

"Learned from the best," Cover Girl grinned back with a bow.

"Snakes, man, you could have warned us that she wasn't really a finance clerk!" Ripcord protested.

*She is. That's her second specialty. Her first is intelligence. She always did do well at maths in school.*

"Damnit. Can I pay you later, ladies?"

"Not too much later. We might have stuff to buy, after all."

"We might not be out of the running yet," Clutch announced, perking up. "Look, the MP is catching her up!"

Kimi and the MP were both onto the second-to-last obstacle, a huge net. The MP was indeed catching up as they scaled the net, with the man called Falcon tailing them. The recruits had apparently cottoned onto the competition, because their faces were pure determination.

"GO KIMI!" Scarlett yelled. Cover Girl cheered and whooped.

"Beach is going to chew you out if you keep using her first name," Ripcord warned.

"Her last name is Arashikage," Jaye snickered, "Try saying that five times fast."

"That's not even how it's pronounced," Scarlett sighed.

"How do you pronounce it?"

"Well, Snake tells me I've got it wrong anyway, so I'm not the one to ask." She waved her hand. "Anyway, we've already told Beach to give her a codename sooner rather than later."

"She's almost at the top!" Cover Girl interrupted.

"So's the MP!" Clutch nudged Ripcord. "Imagine if we actually got our money back, buddy!"

The MP reached the top of the net at the same time as the Asian woman, but as he attempted to swing himself over the top, he lost his grip and fell backwards down the side of the net he had just climbed. Falcon, who had been right behind him on the net, looked up in surprise, just in time to try to catch his companion. Unfortunately, he seemed to forget that he was, in fact, standing on a vertical climbing net.

Every single human being present, from the recruits still on the course, to the Joes standing on the sides, to Kimi Arashikage, watching from the top of the net, winced as the two men slammed into the ground.

Clutch covered his eyes and sighed. "We'll pay you ladies later."

*Bad luck,* Snake Eyes signed sympathetically.

"Yeah," Ripcord agreed. "Bad luck."


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm trying to avoid using names where I can, because this is set pre-codename. If you're confused, you can always look it up, I guess, but in a word, Lee is Tunnel Rat and Provost is Chuckles. **

**So Law fell off the obstacle course and took Falcon with him. Not the worst thing that can happen, right? Right. The worst thing is yet to come…**

Beach Head stalked down the hallway, glowering at the recruits rubbing conscientiously at the floor. He had decided that one of the corridors in a little-used part of the Pit was too dusty, and that the recruits should be the ones to clean it. Furthermore, he had decided to make them do it with yoyos and Kleenex tissues. This included the walls, switches, vents and vent covers and light fixtures. They then got to do the next three corridors over. Within three hours, or they got to run PT for the next week with double packs.

He hadn't told them how to do it, though, so it took a few false starts before it occurred to them to use team-work.

The infiltration expert, Nicky Lee, was crammed into a vent, cleaning it out from the inside. The idea of being in such a small, tight space made Beach Head grimace, but Lee seemed as happy as a rat with cheese. Provost, Falcon and the MP were cleaning the walls and floor. The basketball player was using his height to clean the lighting fixtures. The woman was…

Beach Head looked around. Where was the woman?

"Arashikage! Where the hell did you go?" he roared.

"Here, sir," she called, her voice echoing strangely.

"And where the damned hell is here?"

The air-conditioning vents overhead rattled, and a cover popped off. Kimi Arashikage stuck her head out and grinned at Beach Head. "Here is here, Sergeant."

"What the hell are you doing in there, girlie?" Though, in retrospect, Beach couldn't be surprised. He had heard from Ripcord and Clutch that the woman was a she-ninja. Snake Eyes had confirmed this when Beach Head had asked him later, adding that she had been part of the clan that trained him. Snake Eyes had always like hiding in the attic; made sense that a female ninja would feel the same way about the ceilings doubling as highways.

"Lee said he'd do all the vents, but there're too many. So I said I'd help."

Beach Head eyed her suspiciously, wondering if she was secretly slacking off when he couldn't see her, and grunted. From what he had seen she wasn't that type of person. Besides, he could always double-check her work later. "I better be able to eat outta those vents when this is finished."

"Yes, sergeant!" She pulled her head back in.

The basketball player – his 'court name' was apparently Big Lob – finished the light he was cleaning and bent to pull a fresh Kleenex from the tissue box. It was a good thing he had ducked when he did: the next instant, the light had exploded. Big Lob yelped and covered his head, yelping again when a shower of glass landed on his arms. With a series of pops, every single light in the hallway followed the first's example, sending glass tinkling to the ground the length of the corridor.

"You alright?" Beach Head demanded.

The man nodded, shaken.

"Lee, was that you?" Beach Head roared.

"No sarge! No wires in here!"

"What about you, Arashikage?"

"Wasn't me, Sergeant." Her tone suggested that the question itself was stupid, adding, to Beach Head at least, that anyone who had been raised by ninja would have to learn how to wriggle through the ceiling without getting electrocuted pretty quickly.

Beach Head hesitated, but couldn't resist the urge. The same determination that had led to him becoming valedictorian of his school wouldn't let this issue rest. "That how your name is 'sposed to sound?" he asked gruffly.

"Um, no, sarge." Goddamnit, she sounded _apologetic_!

"Y'all lose your yoyos? Get a move on and get this glass cleaned up," he snapped, turning to scowl at the recruits in general. Wisely, none of them mentioned that they were now working in total darkness. Taking pity on them, Beach Head crossed the corridor and pressed a switch. Dim emergency lights came alive, casting a soft glow. "Move it, ya lazy slackers!"

There was a flurry of activity, but Kleenex tissues didn't really make much noise; certainly not enough to cover the sound of Falcon whispering to the MP, "Is it just me, or is the hot Asian chick always around when something goes wrong?"

"FALCON!"

The man practically levitated. "Sergeant!"

"Here in G.I. Joe, we have a little something called a policy against sexual harassment," Beach Head drawled. "Now, Ah'm told that extends to makin' comments about your teammates." Not that that had ever stopped Clutch, of course. "Ah could, technically, disciple you for that there remark."

Falcon flushed. "Yes sergeant."

"However." Beach Head grinned. "I don't think that would be the appropriate response. Arashikage! Get your sneaky ninja butt down here!"

The woman dropped out of the vent as lightly as a feather. "Sergeant?"

"Did you hear Lieutenant Falcon's remark?"

"I did." Her eyes were glinting enough that Beach Head believed her. Covergirl got that same dangerous gleam occasionally, usually right before a wrench made contact with another grease monkey's head.

"It seems to me that the best thing to do is to let Sergeant Snake Eyes know that you and Lieutenant Falcon here have some issues to work out in your next hand-to-hand class. Sound fair to you?"

She looked like he had given her Christmas on a silver platter. Falcon looked like she had gone ahead and kicked him in the groin. No doubt he was imagining exactly how much pain he was in for on the morrow.

"Yes sergeant!" Arashikage beamed.

"Good. Back to work."

And that, Beach Head mused in satisfaction, should be the end to _that _kind of commentary.

**And that is how the Joes deal with sexual harrassment. If only real workplaces let women respond to sexual harrassment by beating guys up... (sigh)**


	3. Chapter 3

Flint sighed and rubbed his temples. He was by no means a slacker when it came to disciplining recruits, but for once he wished that he could just palm this one off to Duke. That wouldn't be fair though; you really shouldn't ask someone to tell his own brother off.

"So let's just go over this one more time," he said to the recruits standing there sheepishly. Even the MP's dog looked cowed. "You were meant to be on KP duty, yes?"

They nodded dutifully.

"But the kitchen staff made you leave."

They nodded again.

"Because…" Flint glanced at the report one more time, "You broke three dishes, set fire to the sandwiches and made a dishwasher _explode_." He couldn't believe that he had said that last part with a straight face.

The recruits nodded, an impressive feat considering that they were staring at their own feet.

"At which point you were asked to leave, and instructed to make yourself useful in the motor pool." Flint put the report down. He had read this part so many times that it was seared into his memory, and still made him want to laugh. He cleared his throat. "I know what happens next. Do any of you have anything you want to add?"

The recruits glanced at each other. Falcon spoke up, of course; the kid was a natural leader. "Sir, we'd just like to say, we didn't know that the brakes were broken."

"Covergirl swears that they weren't," Flint told him.

"Covergirl is wrong, sir," Lee broke in doggedly. "We didn't do nothing to break them brakes."

"You were working on the wrong truck in the first place," Flint pointed out.

"It was an honest mistake, sir," the woman said defensively.

"Sergeant, you were asked to wash a truck. Instead you took the _wrong_ truck, left the garage and parked it on a hill. Have I gotten anything wrong so far?"

"No sir," they chorused.

"You then proceeded to abandon the truck–"

"We were getting the hose!"

"But why was it on a hill?" Flint threw his hands in the air. "Anywhere else, it would have been fine, but a _hill_?"

"We didn't want the water to pool, sir. We get enough mud pits in PT, we didn't want to cause one where people walk a lot," Falcon explained. "It was meant to run downhill."

"Fine. We'll work with that for the moment. You parked it on a hill, left to get the hose, and didn't think to check that the back of the truck was empty?"

"We thought it had been cleared, sir," Arashikage said meekly. "We thought that that was the truck Covergirl wanted us to clean. It was dirty enough, sir."

"Trucks get dirty, sergeant. It's a fact of life. And I still haven't heard a good reason for removing the truck from the motor pool."

The basketball player opened his mouth, then closed it again. Provost shifted. Flint watched them all with narrowed eyes, and sighed. "You're trying to protect another Joe."

Silence. The MP was blushing, and Arashikage was starting to look slightly pissed-off, as if she were remembering something that had made her _extremely_ pissed off.

Flint was really going to have to do something about that motor pool. "Ok. I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say that Clutch said something to Covergirl that made you think it would be safer if you got out of the blast zone. How close am I?"

The MP spoke up. "Um, he suggested that we should bring the hose in for a, um, wet T-shirt contest, sir."

Flint nearly face-palmed himself. "Go on."

"I suggested we leave before Falcon gave Sergeant Ari – Arasa-"

"Me," Arashikage said helpfully.

"Right, before he gave her another excuse to beat him up." Despite himself, the MP snickered slightly.

Flint could see it all now. It made a horrible kind of sense. "So Covergirl is angry, and you don't want to make her angrier by asking questions. Fine. And you still say that you thought that the brakes were working when you parked the truck."

"Yes sir."

"Even though you are well aware that the truck then proceeded to roll down the hill."

"Yes sir."

"And crash into Beach Head's obstacle course."

"Yes sir."

"And explode." His voice went a little higher on the last word; he couldn't help it.

"Yes sir."

Flint had to bite his tongue. He had never wanted to laugh so hard in his life. The truck had been full of a new compound that they had found in one of Cobra's old labs. It had only come into the Pit that morning. The fobbits had been saying that it was a type of fuel. The recruits had proved quite conclusively that it doubled as a type of liquid explosive.

For a moment, he had thought Beach Head would _cry_.

He cleared his throat again. "Alright. Everything suggests that it was an honest mistake. That's not to mean you're getting a free pass. Double shifts of guard duty for all of you for a month, plus whatever Beach Head decides is fair punishment for ruining his obstacle course."

Provost made the sign of the cross. Lee and Big Lob paled.

"Dismissed," Falcon announced.

The recruits walked through the Pit wrapped in a numbing cloak of impending doom.

"We're dead," Lee said gloomily.

Falcon led the way into the mess and stopped dead as the group was greeted with loud cheers, led by the motor pool crew. Joes were whooping, clapping and stamping their feet. In the corner, Beach Head was quite conspicuously bent over his tray, shovelling up food like it had insulted his mother.

"No," the MP said as they collected their plates, grimacing at the Joes slapping them on the shoulder and congratulating them for fulfilling the real American dream of, as Ripcord put it, 'blowing up the shit of a dude you hate'. Beach Head had to have heard that one. "_Now_ we're dead."

"I blame you," Falcon announced, pointing at Kimi. "You're the one who loaded that dishwasher. That's what got us sent out."

"Like hell!" she shot back. "That thing was faulty. I had nothing to do with it."

"They didn't care about the dishes," Falcon continued. "They didn't even care about the sandwiches. Your exploding dishwasher got us kicked out."

"I put the _plates_ in there!" Kimi replied indignantly. "Dusty said it was a _fork_ that messed the thing up. Not. My. Faut."

"I kinda agree with Falcon on this one," Lee broke in. "You musta been followed by a ghost for your entire life to be as unlucky as you are."

Kimi scowled at her plate. The MP interrupted.

"Enough. It isn't her fault she's bad luck." He grinned, to show it was a joke.

"I'm not bad luck!"

"I suppose it's not her fault," Falcon said to the MP. "And, after all," a tiny grin tugged at his lips, "we did get to blow up Beach Head's obstacle course. How many times will we be able to do that again?"

**During the Chinese Ghost Festival, people try to avoid outdoor activities for fear that ghost will follow them home and bring bad luck.**


End file.
